From the author of A Renegade History of the United States, a boldly persuasive, provocative counter-narrative that reframes our understanding of America's role in the wider world
Over the past 250 years, historian Thaddeus Russell argues in his bold and eye-opening new book, America has projected two opposing forces abroad: one imperial and the other liberating. Contrary to the common view that the Founders were isolationists, he contends that they envisioned a global empire--and that, ever since, the nation has cast itself as a savior, claiming a mission to uplift the world and impose the American way of life through armed force. Simultaneously, Russell shows, the global spread of American popular culture emerged as one of modern history's most subversive forces--an existential threat to authoritarian regimes that was frequently more destabilizing than military intervention, yet free of the violent blowback that typically accompanies foreign intrusion.
Russell's striking narrative extends earlier portrayals of America's imperial ambition. He argues that the Civil War and Reconstruction were a colonial project by the North to conquer a seceded sovereign territory and remake it in the North's image. He shows that while progressive ideals helped justify U.S. military rule in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, the jazz introduced by American soldiers in Manila nightclubs had a deeper and more enduring global impact. He contends that U.S. entry into World War II was driven less by defensive or humanitarian imperatives than by imperial calculation--making two regional conflicts into a global war--and that it ensured the culmination of the Holocaust. He also documents how authoritarian regimes, from the Soviet Union to contemporary Iran, have been eroded from within by "the American way of life." Finally, he argues that Donald Trump has not withdrawn the United States from the world so much as reframed its imperial mission: from the progressive export of ideals to a more openly territorial and transactional assertion of power.
As elegantly written and impeccably documented as it is provocative, chronicling familiar characters as well as those lost to history, Russell adds a vitally important addition to our national narrative, shining an electric new light on our nation's relationship to the wider world.
About the Author :
Thaddeus Russell is a historian, the host of the Unregistered podcast, and the founder of Unregistered Academy. Born and raised in Berkeley, California, Russell graduated from Antioch College and received a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University. He is the author of Out of the Jungle: Jimmy Hoffa and the Re-Making of the American Working Class (Knopf 2001) and A Renegade History of the United States (Free Press, 2010). He has been a professor of history at Columbia University, Barnard College, Eugene Lang College, the New School for Social Research, Occidental College, and Willamette University. He lives in California.
Review :
Praise for Savior and Seducer:
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2026
"The never boring Thaddeus Russell, best known for A Renegade History of the United States, is back with a sweeping and provocative account of American Empire, arguing that the export of American culture--the good, the bad, the weird--has had more global impact on human freedom than any of the nation's overtly imperial designs. For Russell, it is the destabilizing and subversive power of US pop culture that makes and unmakes nations, not the unrivaled power of its massive military."--Literary Hub, "Most Anticipated Books of 2026"
"Gifted historians hold up the mirror of the past, for Americans to learn that who they have been explains who we are now. Thaddeus Russell's mirror reveals not one identity in our foreign policy but two souls struggling against each other, Christian and imperial rectitude versus the sensualism and even vulgarity that has made our entertainment and lifestyle hegemonic even around the world when our wars fail. This is a fascinating and original reinterpretation of American history."--Samuel Moyn, author of Gerontocracy in America
"In Savior and Seducer, Thaddeus Russell shows that the United States has always been divided between the puritanical urge to discipline the world and the irrepressible, Dionysian power of American popular culture. This book will make you ashamed of the carnage inflicted in America's name--and proud of the unruly culture that remains our greatest contribution to human freedom."--Nick Gillespie, editor at large, Reason, and co-author of The Declaration of Independents
Praise for A Renegade History of The United States:
"Revisionist history at its best . . . Imagining what life would be like today if people throughout history had only sacrificed themselves for the "good" of the community, [Russell] suggests we side with the renegades when the guardians of the social order try to keep them down, and that we take more liberties."--Guardian
"[A] rollicking and sure-to-be-controversial history of our great nation."--Metro-Boston
"It's always fascinating spending time with a devil's advocate, and Russell is one of the best. You'll shout at this book endlessly, but you won't be able to put it down, for its chock full of startling, upsetting, and entertaining anecdotes"--The Scotsman
"This lively, contrarian work [is] . . . A sharp, lucid, entertaining view of the "bad" American past."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A work of history like no other--a bold, controversial, original view of American history that will amuse, inspire, outrage, and most of all instruct readers."--Alan Brinkley, Allan Nevins Professor of History, Columbia University, and author of The Publisher and American History: A Survey
"Thaddeus Russell gives us a new pantheon of American heroes, and argues that those who expanded the realm of desire--for sex, for drugs, for illicit experiences--were the very ones who created our liberties. This is a controversial book, but certainly not a dull one."--Elliott Gorn, Professor of American Civilization and History, Brown University, and author of Dillinger's Wild Ride
"Thaddeus Russell has broken free of the ideological prisons of Left and Right to give us a real, flesh-and-blood history of America, filled with untold stories and unlikely heroes . . . This wonderful book follows the best American traditions of iconoclasm and--what is the same thing--truth-telling."--Thomas E. Woods, Jr., author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
"Howard Zinn wrote The People's History' of the United States. But Thaddeus Russell has written the history of the American People Whom Historians Would Rather Forget . . . There is no understanding of American feminism, sexual liberation, civil rights, or dancing in the streets without this careful analysis that Russell has put before us."--Susie Bright, syndicated columnist, author of The Sexual State of the Union, and series editor, Best American Erotica
"Thaddeus Russell is a troublemaker for sure. Whether you call his book courageous or outrageous, his helter-skelter tour through the American past will make you gasp and make you question--as he does--the writing of 'history as usual.'"--Nancy Cott, Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History, Harvard University, and author of Public Vows
"Raucous, profane, and thrillingly original, Thaddeus Russell's A Renegade History of the United States turns the myths of the 'American character' on their heads with a rare mix of wit, scholarship, and storytelling flair."--Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good for You and The Invention of Air
